


Wedding Bells

by telemachus



Series: Gigolas zoo-verse AU [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 23:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3359585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telemachus/pseuds/telemachus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern Setting, sequel to Two out of Three Ain't Bad.</p>
<p>Loving Thranduil is not easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wedding Bells

Trapped, I watch once again as he stands and waits for her to walk down the aisle towards him.

I watch in silence, unable to cry out, unable to move, to fall to my knees, to plead, to beg though my heart is breaking, as he says the words, as he puts a ring on her finger, as she smiles up at him.

Whatever you want, I said.

And I stand by it.

My eyes dry, I hold onto my pride, even as I hold his toddler on my lap, even as I raise an eyebrow to quell the incipient rebellion I can feel from the teenagers next to me, natural iconoclasts as teenagers are, dubious of any change as these two have become.

Somehow, the newly married couple is progressing past me, and I – I cannot bear to look – I cannot bear not to look at him.

I love him so, and he knows, but he does not look at me.

Instead it is her who stops, and beckons – and – is nothing left to me? – Legolas – my little Legolas – my not-son, my not-even-step-son – runs to her, and she smiles and his father – his father picks him up, more affectionate than I have ever seen him before, more – happy families – than I could ever persuade him to be. Again she beckons, and now – now the teens also leave my side, and I can hear the people in the church voicing quiet approval at her charm, her suitability.

I will not let my shoulders slump in the misery of defeat, of failure, of – of loss of all my hopes, my dreams, of the future I thought we had. I will not turn away and let them whisper behind my back.

I watch, the image burning itself onto my eyeballs, as they walk away, out to have photographs taken.

I watch the photos flip past, the wedding, the children that come in the years ahead, the boys growing, Legolas’ school portraits, Legolas’ college graduation, flanked by proud father and doting step-mother as he fulfils expectations. I see him cold and locked in to society’s approved role, and I know I have lost all that I held dear.

I have lost my little toddler who trotted after me around the zoo, talking.

I have lost the child that followed me, helping as best he could, singing.

I have lost the teen that came to me when the world was unfair, when his father did not understand him, when nothing but animals made sense, muttering.

I have lost the young man, so happy, so bright, so full of new love, who even then needed me if only as someone to listen to his joy.

I have lost the only child I will ever have.

I have lost his brothers also.

But beyond that, far, far beyond that, more than that, always more, though I never knew how to show it, how to tell him, how to plead – and perhaps that is why – I have lost my beloved.

And that I never really had him – that I was only ever a desperate comfort – a better-than-nothing – an easy way to patch a broken family – it does not help the pain.

I thought – I thought if I loved him enough – if I tried – if I did all he asked – I thought one day, one day, he would come to care for me. Not as I love him, never that, I never was fool enough to hope for that – but – I thought perhaps need, and want, and – and habit – might mean something.

Fool.

To think that any of that, any of such pathetic devotion would compare to the ease, the fairytale happy ending of a white wedding to a pretty girl.

He does not love her; I know, and I daresay she knows, he loves only his wife, only the one who is dead, the mother of these three children. 

What use is that knowledge to me? What comfort, when all the world tells him he is better with her, better married, better to give the boys another mother, and step-siblings?

What can I offer that compares to that?

Only mutterings, and backs turned, and coarse headlines in tabloid papers. Only the suspicion that his true love was a lie, a pretence, and that – that is the sharpest thorn of all for him. The irony, that he will go through with this lie, this pretence to shore up faith in what was true – is not lost on me.

I never thought him a coward. I do not now.

I never thought him cruel. I do not now.

I tell myself he has reasons, he does not know – does not see – how he hurts me, and I – I will not speak. 

Whatever you want, I said.

But still – I love him.

I try to tell myself that if he is happy, if the boys are happy – in the end that is what is most important.

And I fear for my little Legolas, I fear for his realisation, for how now will he find the words to tell his father he is gay?

It is not my problem any more.

The zoo is sold away, I am no longer even his employee.

I can no longer see him even in the office.

My life is empty, and it stretches out before me, the words he once said forgotten by all but me.

“I’m asking you – to – marry me, you bloody idiot. I find – I find everything runs smoother when you are there. We need you. All of us.”

And I wonder if he found better words for her.

 

 

 

I wake from the dream – the nightmare – as I have so often these past – twenty years, more – tears wet on my face, heart racing, and I lie, silent in the darkness, trying to control my breathing.

It has not happened.

He is here, by my side.

I remind myself that now – now so many things are changed – now it is possible for me to reach out, to touch him. 

I dare not, still.

I do not wish to wake him.

I would not have him realise my fear, my insecurity.

I do not want him to think I ask for more, when I have so much – so very, very much.

He is here, he has said he loves me – is that not enough?

It should be enough.

What am I, some foolish adolescent that I crave more proof, more certainty?

What do I expect him to do – what is there that he could do? If I cannot trust his words, what would I have?

I touch the ring I have worn for so many years, and I remind myself it is my choice he does not wear one. I never asked him to.

How could I when he still wears the one his wife gave him? How could I ever ask him to put that aside – what would that do to his sons?

He loves me. He has said it, to me, in the privacy of our home, he has held me, and loved me, over and over – he wanted me back when I thought he cared not and made myself walk away.

Is that not enough?

It should be, Caradhil, I tell myself, it is so much more than you ever thought you would have. Richer I am by far than I ever dreamt to be, and I mean not the house, the money, none of that could ever compare to the moments when he holds me, when he calls me his, when he smiles.

I swallow, telling myself this, pressing hands against eyes to stop the tears, stroking one finger over the ring I wear, reminding myself that not one thing in the dream has ever happened nor will. I have not lost my Legolas, my little one, I will not, nor his brothers.

My beloved is here next to me.

And if some things – some things do not, will not, change – if he still cannot touch me in front of others, will not have me at his side in the eyes of the press when there is some headline in the finance pages – if he still speaks of himself as widowed, not “living with a partner” – what matters it?

In all honesty, what difference would words make to what we have?

He is widowed. It is not a lie, it is just – sometimes – I wonder what it would be like to be held, to be – not as Legolas is with his Gimli – I know that is no more my style than Thranduil’s, but – just sometimes – it would be nice to be – acknowledged.

Foolish.

He is not like to change more than he has. Is such – such idiocy – such pathetic insecurity really worth risking all that you now have? 

Those moments when he holds me, kisses me, whispers things I thought – I thought I would never hear him say – when he, tired, will lean on me, be glad of me, find comfort in my arms – how can I wish to change him, to ask for more?

I tell myself again, as I have told myself in the dark hours so many times, he is here, he wants me here, none of the rest matters.

 

 

 

He shifts position, and the mattress tips, just a little, moving us closer, and I realise he has rolled to face me.

“What is it you dream of?” he says, “When you wake like this, what is it that has you so?”

Uselessly in the dark, I shake my head, wondering for how long he has woken and known I wept and said nothing, wondering how many lies and secrets are still between us, and I manage,

“Nothing.” For is not that the truth? 

He sighs, and half reaches towards me, then pulls his hand back, as though he thinks – I do not know what he thinks.

“Caradhil,” he says, and I can feel the anger in his voice, “I am many things, but I am not a fool. I used to think – you wept for one you loved, one who had left you – and I never wanted to hear the tale.”

I find – I am almost able to laugh at his idiocy – how could he ever – ever – think I loved another? Yet I know he did, I know for long years while I adored in silence, he thought it was his wealth and the chance of children to raise that kept me at his side. 

What does he think now?

Whatever it is, it is wrong, and – have I not learnt – have we not learnt – to conceal no longer?

I take a breath,

“You are right, in a way,” I say, “I dream – it is always the same – I dream you – you are marrying. And the boys like her. And – I know it would be easier for you, for them, I know you are – not unhappy with her. And I – I watch it happen. Because it is what you choose, what you want – and I – I keep my word.”

I say it, all of it, without a single sob, or sniff, or tear. My voice does not tremble, and I am proud of myself for it.

I sound cold and bleak.

There is silence.

I suppose he is thinking it would indeed have been easier. Perhaps he is thinking of whom he could have married.

“Is that what you think?” he asks, cold as ice, “is that what you think of me? That I would treat you or – or this – her – so?”

“No,” I say, and I make a movement as though to shrug, but – I am lying on my back, it is not easy to shrug, “no, it is a dream. That is all.”

“Yet you cry. Some part of you thinks this could still happen,” he sighs, and reaches out, runs a hand through my hair, and the gentle touch is still – strange. Touching at all – beyond sex – is strange, wonderful but strange, after all the years of not, “this is not how I wanted to do this – but – do you want a ridiculous over the top extravagant wedding, like Legolas’, or just the two of us in a registry office – or something inbetween?”

And I am silent, stunned by his matter-of-factness, his assumption that we were heading this way, until he pulls back, and I worry how my silence is read, and I – I launch myself at him, and – we are too old for this, too old to laugh, and cling, and cry, and kiss, and – and too old to be so desperate for each other’s touch.

Surely we are too old, I think, but – apparently not.

And oh – oh my love – my lover, my beloved, my Thranduil – you are all to me – and what care I for anything in this world if you – you touch me and hold me – and let me – let me touch and kiss, if you roll us so you are atop me, so you move against me – and – and I cry out as your need, your pleasure tells me I am home, I am in the one place I want to be, tells me that you – you want me. You say my name, you say I am yours, and I – I am clinging, as I so long wanted to cling, I am whispering all kinds of foolishness, foolishness I thought was only for others, only in my dreams, but now – now I have learnt that you – you also have a longing to be held, and adored – and oh how I love you, need you, would give you anything you ask.

 

 

 

“No white dresses though,” he says, afterwards, “I draw the line at that.”

A part of me – a mischievous part, a part that enjoyed three boys to tease and joke with, a part that has never been allowed in our bed, for he has never been one for such silliness – wants to pout, and demand, and watch his reaction, but in all honesty – I do not think I could convince. I no more desire to wear a dress than to see him in one.

“No,” I agree instead, “and – I care not. None of it matters. However you would have it be. Different, I suppose,” I say, touching his ring – the ring that he says will be joined by one I choose – and then I laugh, “Legolas was talking about getting a licence for the mansion – we could maybe there – it would be a good advertisement if we did – for the zoo – good for business.”

I say it almost as a test – to see – what reason will he think of to persuade me to keep things low-key, discreet, whatever word he chooses. I do not mind, I tell myself, it matters not if none know – I am not a blushing bride of twenty-one, I do not need announcements and cake, any more than I need a dress. 

But – I would rather like – just once – to have a day of – celebration.

He smiles, and raises his eyebrow, as he does, and traces his hand once more over my face, running his fingers through my hair,

“Oh my Caradhil,” he says, “always a scheme, always. So wrapped in your work. And yet you doubt my love for you. It is a good idea. Legolas would like that – and – very appropriate,” and he tips my face to his and kisses me, and I – I think there is no-one in this world as happy as I.

**Author's Note:**

> In case it isn't obvious - most zoos in Britain are built in the grounds of what used to be stately homes - and so the mansions are often licensed for civil weddings. I have no idea whether this is the same in other countries....


End file.
